Our own clients are fighting for us! Why the Jagdalpur Legal Aid group is taking on the Bastar Bar Association

Far away from the increasingly “polarised” debate over the NJAC, a smaller battle is being raged right in the heartland of the country. And at the centre of the dispute lies a resolution passed by the Bastar Bar Association disallowing non-local lawyers from appearing in court..Two and a half years after the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group (JAG-LAG) first began providing legal aid in the Bastar region, the Bastar Bar Association (BBA) held an aam sabha (general body meeting). At that meeting, a resolution was passed that prohibited non-local lawyers from appearing in cases without the prior approval of the association..Worse, there is an unofficial boycott of sorts against the JAG-LAG lawyers; local lawyers are unwilling to appear for fear of repercussions from the lawyer community..Unsurprisingly, the resolution comes after months of subtle, and not-so-subtle harassment, and hostility. Isha Khandelwal says that the BBA initially raised an objection to JAG-LAG lawyers, demanding five hundred rupees (and prior notice) for every case they would appear in. When the JAG team said the demand would be met provided it was given in writing, the BBA refused to comply. Instead, it chose to adopt some more extreme tactics..Isha recounts how office bearers of the BBA became increasingly hostile. When she submitted a written application for a copy of the resolution, BBA President Ashutosh Dwivedi threw the application, and even resorted to verbal threats and insults..At one point of time, Praveen Thakur, the BBA’s secretary, even started following JAG-LAG’s Shalini Gera around in court, going to the extent of telling her that she was not allowed to appear in these courts. Soon enough, threats of physical violence were resorted to..The ostensible reason provided for the resolution is to protect the livelihoods of the local lawyers. It is a particularly shaky claim, given the small number of cases that the legal aid group works with. Worse, current rules ensure that a local lawyer is engaged anyway. The real reason is not too hard to decipher..Typically representing some of the most oppressed people in the region, JAG-LAG must have managed to irk the existing power structures, which in turn have weighed down on lawyer’s associations. By creating such a hostile environment within the legal community, the legal aid group could have been pushed into a corner..But this has not happened..The JAG-LAG team, which recently featured in Forbes 30 under 30 list, is quite clear that leaving is not an option. And the primary reason remains their clients..Says Isha,.“Our clients say that if we leave, they will go on a dharna (protest). This is part of the fight that everyone is doing here. Our very own clients are fighting for us! How can we leave?”.In fact, the legal aid group has now gone on the offensive, filing an appeal before the Chhattisgarh Bar council against the Bastar Bar Association’s President and Secretary, as well as challenging the resolution itself..Both, President Ashutosh Dwivedi and Secretary Naveen Thakur, could not be reached for comments at the time of publication..(Lead image by Kuni Takahashi)